Of course, had Apple not produced a locked down, proprietary iPhone, we would have been tethering all along, and it would be easy to assign blame to AT&T. From where I sit, Apple is helping AT&T, and while they may not be the only company to do so, it is certainly not the case that Apple is completely innocent here.
Most Christians I have encountered just want a religion based on what Jesus taught his followers, according the bible, and do not particularly care about the rest of the mythology. I have certainly encountered some who cling to the rest of the philosophy, and even among them, only a very small number will flat out reject science because of what the bible says. Now, this may be because I went to a special high school, and immediately after that I went to college, and immediately after that I start grad school, and that had I taken some time in the middle to see the world beyond academia, I would have encountered the "other" Christians.
Mutations are random, natural selection is not. Plenty of mutations occur in every generation, but some will be selected against. A mutation that causes a baby gazelle not to run as fast is not likely to survive for more than a generation or two, because slower gazelles are more likely to be killed by predators before getting a chance to reproduce.
Creationists frequently point to the random nature of mutations, and then claim that evolution itself is random. There is certainly an element of randomness, but that is true of many other natural processes. Chemical reactions have an element of randomness, but we are pretty comfortable with the idea that at a high enough temperature, hydrogen and oxygen will react to form water (even though some hydrogen and some oxygen will not react). Likewise with evolution: positive mutations are vastly more likely to survive than negative mutations, and thus over the course of many generations, those positive mutations accumulate (of course, in the modern view, there is a lot that has been left out of this simplistic summary, but this is the basic idea of natural selection, which remains a key tenet).
Except that "kinds" and "forms" are difficult to define. Are dogs and cats different "kinds?" What about dogs and humans? What about dogs and fish? Dogs and sponges?
Where you really want to look, if you are interested in quantitative evidence, is gene sequencing and genetic studies, which is the modern basis for taxonomy and the most active field of research in evolution. Genetic studies have also demonstrated that over long periods of time, the Darwinian model is not the complete story -- genes are transferred between species ("horizontal" transfer), genes are sometimes "inserted" by viruses (there are stretches of the human genome that came from retroviruses), and so forth.
Really, if you are interested in the theory of evolution, the best thing you can do is read some journal articles and see what the people who actually do the research have to say. The media frequently distills the research down until it is only a shadow of what the researchers actually discovered, and these distilled soundbites are easy targets for people who want to discredit the theory. Scientific journals are the ultimate repository of human knowledge, and you should really turn to them if you want to know about a particular field of research.
Why to creationists insist upon warping science? The big bang theory is not a theory of biology, the way the theory of evolution is, and neither theory states that anything came from "nothing." The big bang theory simply states that all the matter and energy in the universe was once concentrated at a single point, and for reasons unknown, an expansion occurred, leading to the universe in its current form, where matter and energy are not concentrated at a single point. The theory of evolution proposes a model that explains why different species exist, not why life exists or how the universe came into being.
Seriously, even if you do not accept the theory of evolution, you could at least refrain from confounding it with other theories.
I am saying that the library will now have a database that relates fingerprints to identities. So, later in life I go ahead and change my identity, but my fingerprints do not change -- and now that database can be used to find me based on my old identity. Don't think in terms of the library, think in terms of witness protection programs, spousal abuse, criminals who want to start a crime-free life, and so forth -- there are a lot of reason why a person would want to abandon an old identity, but biometric data is pretty hard to alter.
Perhaps we are looking this from opposite angles? My concern is that someone will be unable to change their identity, because the biometrics will track them down -- I think you see that as a situation where the biometrics will give "false" information, whereas I see the problem being that a person will be forced to carry old identities with them for the rest of their life. My argument is similar to this blog post about Facebook:
Thus begging the question, what need is there for fingerprint based systems? Personally, I remember a similar situation, where the class would be led to the library by the teacher, and under the supervision of the teacher and the librarian, we would check out books. There was never a need for automation, and we received instruction and attention from the teacher, which is exactly what should be happening.
Really, my point was that we should not be concerned with students forgetting library cards or PINs, since at that age, they should be supervised by an adult.
Except that I can always change my library card, just like I can always change my legal identity. Changing biometrics is a fairly difficult thing to do.
True, but that does not give Google information about which floor I live on, or which room, etc. There is a lot more information being handed over to Google than those vans are collecting.
So they store a hash...do you think it is impossible to compute that hash from a fingerprint I lift off of a cup? All the hash does is make it hard to compute the actual fingeprint, which is only a comfort if you are worried about someone stealing your biometric data -- but the other issue, the privacy issue, is not solved by hashing the data.
Do you normally leave a copy of your legal identity with the fingerprints you deposit everywhere? No, and as a result, it would require effort to determine that the fingerprints on some table somewhere came from your hand. Of course, this school has a database of fingerprints (or at least a hash of them) and corresponding names, convenient and easy to query.
Do you commonly tag your biometric data with your legal identity? Sure, my fingerprints are left on the counter when I buy something at the corner store, but I do not sign those fingerprints with my name. When you start using fingerprints for library records, you essentially have a convenient database for tying those fingerprints to the people who own them, without the effort that was once necessary to do so (i.e. following someone around, picking through their trash, and so forth).
"library they use is likely already keeping a record of the books they check out"
True, but now it is a record that is tied to something very difficult to change or erase: a fingerprint. What guarantee is there that the police will not be able to enter the school and demand that certain fingerprints be recorded for their use? Perhaps at the time, the police will have an innocent motive (a risk of someone kidnapping the child), but now they have fingerprints on record for someone who is not a criminal.
Well one issue is that it is fairly difficult to change biometrics -- I can change my legal name, my home address, my country of residence, etc., but it would be much harder to change my fingerprints. It is also troubling to think that these systems may become widespread and unavoidable, which further complicates matters (I want to change my identity, but now there are fingerprint scanners everywhere and thus a convenient way to track me down).
"You try to get a six year old to remember a pin number or library card."
Or, you could have an adult help them. Like, a teacher, or a parent, or the librarian. Why are we suddenly expecting 6 year olds to go to the library without any supervision?
Except that in this case, it is a thumbprint combined with other identifying information (like a name). They claim the information is not stored, but I am sure that buried in the contract there is a clause allowing law enforcement to arbitrarily request the thumbprints of particular students. Sure, they could always pick through the trash to get the thumbprints, but this system makes it that much easier, further tipping the balance of power away from the citizens.
Of course, there are plenty of other ways that the government manages to get this sort of information, but that does not mean it is OK to add to the problem.
"I don't understand how Google tracking wifi networks is bad for me."
They, or someone with access to their data, might abuse the information. If Google were a small, local company, doing this sort of thing for a single locale, it would not be so terrible -- but they are a huge, international operation, tying information together from all over the world, and using that information to determine more details about a person than that person agreed to reveal. There is a very high potential for abuse, and this is one of those situations where once the abuse starts, it will already be too late.
Friend comes to my house. Friend uses Google location service. Now Google has the information about my wireless network, even though I did not give it to them.
It would not be impossible for Google to determine that it was my house that the wifi data corresponds to, particularly if I use some other Google service. That means that I only really have Google's promise to "do no evil," and a hope that nobody else manages to gain access to Google's data -- that situation makes me a bit nervous.
The Web is not the be-all and end-all of the Internet
Browsing without autoloading images is not nearly as bad as you make it out to be
Most of what I go on the web for is news (where the text is usually more important) and journal articles (which are distributed as PDFs)
As a case in point, Slashdot is perfectly fine without images or Javascript (as long as you request Javascript-free pages, which are readily delivered).
Sounds like the pages will load even faster? I already block Javascript, Flash, and other trendy web technologies, and to be honest, if a webpage looks less "pretty" because I also blocked images and stylesheets, I can deal with it. If the images are really that important, then I can just load them as needed.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, had Apple not produced a locked down, proprietary iPhone, we would have been tethering all along, and it would be easy to assign blame to AT&T. From where I sit, Apple is helping AT&T, and while they may not be the only company to do so, it is certainly not the case that Apple is completely innocent here.
Most Christians I have encountered just want a religion based on what Jesus taught his followers, according the bible, and do not particularly care about the rest of the mythology. I have certainly encountered some who cling to the rest of the philosophy, and even among them, only a very small number will flat out reject science because of what the bible says. Now, this may be because I went to a special high school, and immediately after that I went to college, and immediately after that I start grad school, and that had I taken some time in the middle to see the world beyond academia, I would have encountered the "other" Christians.
Mutations are random, natural selection is not. Plenty of mutations occur in every generation, but some will be selected against. A mutation that causes a baby gazelle not to run as fast is not likely to survive for more than a generation or two, because slower gazelles are more likely to be killed by predators before getting a chance to reproduce.
Creationists frequently point to the random nature of mutations, and then claim that evolution itself is random. There is certainly an element of randomness, but that is true of many other natural processes. Chemical reactions have an element of randomness, but we are pretty comfortable with the idea that at a high enough temperature, hydrogen and oxygen will react to form water (even though some hydrogen and some oxygen will not react). Likewise with evolution: positive mutations are vastly more likely to survive than negative mutations, and thus over the course of many generations, those positive mutations accumulate (of course, in the modern view, there is a lot that has been left out of this simplistic summary, but this is the basic idea of natural selection, which remains a key tenet).
Except that "kinds" and "forms" are difficult to define. Are dogs and cats different "kinds?" What about dogs and humans? What about dogs and fish? Dogs and sponges?
Where you really want to look, if you are interested in quantitative evidence, is gene sequencing and genetic studies, which is the modern basis for taxonomy and the most active field of research in evolution. Genetic studies have also demonstrated that over long periods of time, the Darwinian model is not the complete story -- genes are transferred between species ("horizontal" transfer), genes are sometimes "inserted" by viruses (there are stretches of the human genome that came from retroviruses), and so forth.
Really, if you are interested in the theory of evolution, the best thing you can do is read some journal articles and see what the people who actually do the research have to say. The media frequently distills the research down until it is only a shadow of what the researchers actually discovered, and these distilled soundbites are easy targets for people who want to discredit the theory. Scientific journals are the ultimate repository of human knowledge, and you should really turn to them if you want to know about a particular field of research.
Why to creationists insist upon warping science? The big bang theory is not a theory of biology, the way the theory of evolution is, and neither theory states that anything came from "nothing." The big bang theory simply states that all the matter and energy in the universe was once concentrated at a single point, and for reasons unknown, an expansion occurred, leading to the universe in its current form, where matter and energy are not concentrated at a single point. The theory of evolution proposes a model that explains why different species exist, not why life exists or how the universe came into being.
Seriously, even if you do not accept the theory of evolution, you could at least refrain from confounding it with other theories.
I am saying that the library will now have a database that relates fingerprints to identities. So, later in life I go ahead and change my identity, but my fingerprints do not change -- and now that database can be used to find me based on my old identity. Don't think in terms of the library, think in terms of witness protection programs, spousal abuse, criminals who want to start a crime-free life, and so forth -- there are a lot of reason why a person would want to abandon an old identity, but biometric data is pretty hard to alter.
Perhaps we are looking this from opposite angles? My concern is that someone will be unable to change their identity, because the biometrics will track them down -- I think you see that as a situation where the biometrics will give "false" information, whereas I see the problem being that a person will be forced to carry old identities with them for the rest of their life. My argument is similar to this blog post about Facebook:
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2010/05/facebooks_ident.php
Thus begging the question, what need is there for fingerprint based systems? Personally, I remember a similar situation, where the class would be led to the library by the teacher, and under the supervision of the teacher and the librarian, we would check out books. There was never a need for automation, and we received instruction and attention from the teacher, which is exactly what should be happening.
Really, my point was that we should not be concerned with students forgetting library cards or PINs, since at that age, they should be supervised by an adult.
Except that I can always change my library card, just like I can always change my legal identity. Changing biometrics is a fairly difficult thing to do.
True, but that does not give Google information about which floor I live on, or which room, etc. There is a lot more information being handed over to Google than those vans are collecting.
So they store a hash...do you think it is impossible to compute that hash from a fingerprint I lift off of a cup? All the hash does is make it hard to compute the actual fingeprint, which is only a comfort if you are worried about someone stealing your biometric data -- but the other issue, the privacy issue, is not solved by hashing the data.
Do you normally leave a copy of your legal identity with the fingerprints you deposit everywhere? No, and as a result, it would require effort to determine that the fingerprints on some table somewhere came from your hand. Of course, this school has a database of fingerprints (or at least a hash of them) and corresponding names, convenient and easy to query.
Do you commonly tag your biometric data with your legal identity? Sure, my fingerprints are left on the counter when I buy something at the corner store, but I do not sign those fingerprints with my name. When you start using fingerprints for library records, you essentially have a convenient database for tying those fingerprints to the people who own them, without the effort that was once necessary to do so (i.e. following someone around, picking through their trash, and so forth).
"I really don't see what difference you see between a name and a thumbprint,"
I can go to a court and have my name changed. Where do I go to have my fingerprints changed?
"as long as it is not completely brain dead"
Interesting assumption.
"library they use is likely already keeping a record of the books they check out"
True, but now it is a record that is tied to something very difficult to change or erase: a fingerprint. What guarantee is there that the police will not be able to enter the school and demand that certain fingerprints be recorded for their use? Perhaps at the time, the police will have an innocent motive (a risk of someone kidnapping the child), but now they have fingerprints on record for someone who is not a criminal.
Well one issue is that it is fairly difficult to change biometrics -- I can change my legal name, my home address, my country of residence, etc., but it would be much harder to change my fingerprints. It is also troubling to think that these systems may become widespread and unavoidable, which further complicates matters (I want to change my identity, but now there are fingerprint scanners everywhere and thus a convenient way to track me down).
"You try to get a six year old to remember a pin number or library card."
Or, you could have an adult help them. Like, a teacher, or a parent, or the librarian. Why are we suddenly expecting 6 year olds to go to the library without any supervision?
Except that in this case, it is a thumbprint combined with other identifying information (like a name). They claim the information is not stored, but I am sure that buried in the contract there is a clause allowing law enforcement to arbitrarily request the thumbprints of particular students. Sure, they could always pick through the trash to get the thumbprints, but this system makes it that much easier, further tipping the balance of power away from the citizens.
Of course, there are plenty of other ways that the government manages to get this sort of information, but that does not mean it is OK to add to the problem.
"I don't understand how Google tracking wifi networks is bad for me."
They, or someone with access to their data, might abuse the information. If Google were a small, local company, doing this sort of thing for a single locale, it would not be so terrible -- but they are a huge, international operation, tying information together from all over the world, and using that information to determine more details about a person than that person agreed to reveal. There is a very high potential for abuse, and this is one of those situations where once the abuse starts, it will already be too late.
Friend comes to my house. Friend uses Google location service. Now Google has the information about my wireless network, even though I did not give it to them.
It would not be impossible for Google to determine that it was my house that the wifi data corresponds to, particularly if I use some other Google service. That means that I only really have Google's promise to "do no evil," and a hope that nobody else manages to gain access to Google's data -- that situation makes me a bit nervous.
Presumably, the movie was "paid for" as part of the cable bill.
As opposed to using the client IP address?
As a case in point, Slashdot is perfectly fine without images or Javascript (as long as you request Javascript-free pages, which are readily delivered).
Sounds like a system of mirrors to me. Now, the more relevant question: why is it using DNS to try to determine my location?
Sounds like the pages will load even faster? I already block Javascript, Flash, and other trendy web technologies, and to be honest, if a webpage looks less "pretty" because I also blocked images and stylesheets, I can deal with it. If the images are really that important, then I can just load them as needed.